Withdrawal from Gaza, Hamas' Rise to Power

The Second Lebanon War

In the summer of 2006, a month-long conflict between Israeli and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon ensued, caused by Hezbollah guerrillas conducting cross-border raid, killing eight Israel Defense Forces soldiers and abducted two others.

Hezbollah is the military arm of Shia Islam. Its 1985 

charter aimed the expulsion of Christian militia, the 

Americans, the French and their allies definitely from

 Lebanon, mad to institute an Islamic government.

 

The month-long war led to heavy losses on both sides of the conflict and an ultimately inconclusive result. The fighting with the signing of a United Nations-brokered ceasefire and the war was officially ended when Israel lifted it naval blockade of Lebanon on September 8, 2006.

Israel lost 121 soldiers, including the two kidnapped soldiers, with more than 600 injured, and had 44 civilians killed with nearly 1,500 injured. Though estimates vary, Israel claims to have killed more than 600 Hezbollah fighters.

Why does Israel Exist?

The League of Nations formally awarded Britain a mandate over Mandatory Palestine in 1922, when Jews made up 11% of the population. The land west of the Jordan River was under direct British administration until 1948, while the land east of the Jordan was a semi-autonomous region known as Transjordan Emirate, and gained independence in 1946. In 1936-39 there was a nationalist uprising by Palestinian Arabs against British colonial rule and mass Jewish immigration into Palestine. In 1947, a United Nations General Assembly resolution provided for the creation of an "Arab State" and a "Jewish State" to exist within Palestine in the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine.

The Jewish Agency, precursor to the Israeli government, agreed to the plan, but the Palestinians rejected it and fighting broke out. After Israel's May 14, 1948 unilateral declaration of independence, support from neighboring Arab states escalated the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine into the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The legal and territorial status of Israel and Palestine is still hotly disputed in the region and within the international community.